This game was so ass
It tried to be like Metal Gear Rising Revengeance while trying to combine hack n slash, shooter and beat em up genres and looking like a dollar tree Agent 47
It tried to be like Metal Gear Rising Revengeance while trying to combine hack n slash, shooter and beat em up genres and looking like a dollar tree Agent 47
An awesome B-movie experience with a unique gameplay style, not the deepest or most polished game in the world but kept me hooked for it's duration enjoyed this more then Ninja Gaiden 3 for what it's worth
While not in depth at all, switching from 1st to 3rd person combat was a fun time and a surprising amount of depth with it's weapons, story is practically non-existant, equivelent to a staright to DVD movie but at least better then the Steven Segal variety
This bad boys probably stuck on the Wii U and honestly with it's price it's not worth running out and getting but I had a really good time with it
6/10
While not in depth at all, switching from 1st to 3rd person combat was a fun time and a surprising amount of depth with it's weapons, story is practically non-existant, equivelent to a staright to DVD movie but at least better then the Steven Segal variety
This bad boys probably stuck on the Wii U and honestly with it's price it's not worth running out and getting but I had a really good time with it
6/10
this game being an official Nintendo game marketed towards the WII U really pushes me to enjoy it way more than I should otherwise. the story is all over the place but its presentation is very committed and outlandish so i enjoy the novelty of it. the gameplay itself is pretty fine, competent enough until you go against the later bosses in the story. they're all very tough and that's when it feels like the guarding and dodging isn't good enough in most situations where they kill you quickly. I only played the online once way back when this game was new and although I cant speak on that experience as a whole, I did end up playing the unofficial free to play online game from the same devs which i found very enjoyable when it was still around.
honestly i could get into it, it felt kinda fun to play after the 3 hours i spent with it on a stream
More like Devil's Turd
The following is a transcript of a video review which can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/3WhWvm5UPFc
Video game criticism is exorbitantly capable of making or breaking the success of any of their subjects. Whether there were ulterior motives involved or the reviewer was having a particularly bad week, a poor reception from a large reviewing organisation can almost guarantee low sales. Being on the receiving end of a critical panning within the video game industry is almost a death sentence and for Valhalla Game Studios, it seems to have been. Despite being composed of former Team Ninja staff and lead by Tomonobu Itagaki himself, Valhalla Game Studios’ Devil’s Third was received so poorly that the studio hasn’t produced another title since. Itagaki took a 5 year hiatus from video game work, and the studio’s dreams of a trilogy would never come to fruition. Ivan’s violent adventure to prevent global destruction seemed to be the polar opposite of what the critics were wanting, and they took every opportunity to elaborate on the game’s mistakes. But was the game as disastrous as the critics claimed? Was there some predisposition to dislike Devil’s Third because of its Wii U exclusivity and bizarre character design? Was Unreal Engine 3 too archaic by 2015 or did the game’s humour just not land? To truly answer those questions, let’s take a little journey back in time.
2015 was a dark time; EA had tossed out Star Wars: Battlefront while they rebuilt Maxis into a mobile developer, League of Legends was at its most popular, Take Two was closing a bunch of it’s international developers, and Donald Trump was leading the Republican nomination. Nintendo’s home console the Wii U had been a sales disaster and during 2015 they announced their upcoming replacement, the Nintendo Switch. Developers creating games for the Wii U were suddenly put under a lot of pressure to deliver before the new system arrived, and of the 29 Wii U games released during 2015 only 10 have a Metacritic rating above 80%. Nintendo themselves were releasing poor quality games like Mario Party 10 and the infamous Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival, but right at the bottom of the list lies our hero. At a measly 43 points, Devil’s Third had earned the title of worst Wii U game of the year. IGN’s review claimed it was “the kind of soulless, perfunctory action game they fear people judging the medium of video games by”, while GameSpot said that “Devil’s Third is near-impossible to recommend.” Technical problems, shallow gameplay loops, and unwelcome difficulty were among the main criticisms within almost all of the other 54 Metacritic reviews and my experience will not get the benefit of post-launch patches to clear any of those problems away. Despite this, Itagaki was still very positive about the studio’s future.
Valhalla Game Studio was founded in 2008 by former Team Ninja staff, after the release of the reboot Ninja Gaiden sequel. Itagaki had left Tecmo with intention to sue after he wasn’t awarded bonuses he was promised, and convinced a contingent of his colleagues to migrate with him. Throughout the next seven years, Valhalla would seek a publisher for Devil’s Third who would assist them in placing the game onto the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. Valhalla were eventually successful in brokering a partnership with THQ but with their bankruptcy and liquidation in 2012, Valhalla were left high and dry. Korean multimedia organisation Doobic were brought aboard to fill THQ’s absence, but Doobic also went out of business during 2013. In 2014, Devil’s Third was displayed by Nintendo at E3 and released on the Wii U in the following year. Devil’s Third seemed to have been doomed to fail from the start and it isn’t surprising that the game has the reported problems that it has. But the fundamental design wouldn’t have been compromised during these publisher and platform changes, so was the original design just poorly conceived?
Devil’s Third is a third person shooter with a robust action combat system existing alongside the shooting mechanics. Ivan is a highly competent whirling-death-meat-machine, able to wield any firearm or bladed weapon he gets a hold of. At the beginning of most levels Ivan will be deployed with his katana and a couple of varying automatic weapons and maybe a shotgun or a sniper rifle. Those automatic weapons change from time to time, but for the most part Ivan’s weapons will feel very similar; they all have similar aiming mechanics and recoil effects. Hand to hand combat is well-rounded, featuring attack combos, blocking, dodging, and a targeted jumping attack for extra style. Ivan is very athletic and can use his impressive vertical leap to scale pretty high walls. He’s also quick on his feet and is able to keep a low profile when required. I especially enjoyed the slide move as it allowed swift gap closing while also allowing gunfire to pass overhead. Further, there are a few different set piece segments to keep things fresh as the game charges forward like boss battles and vehicle sections. As far as having enough to do, Devil’s Third delivers and provides a handful of systems to master as the narrative progresses.
So the criticism of the game’s shallowness seems unfounded, there’s a surprising quantity of enemy types who are best handled in different ways that keeps the various combat encounters fresh and still ensures the game doesn’t overstay its welcome. In the early stages the enemies aren’t mind-blowing or anything, but they’re filling their roles perfectly fine. More hand to hand enemies are introduced, then a mini boss of sorts appears, things get silly in terms of theming but the enemy designs are unique and engaging, and the game continues to deliver new opponents throughout its run time. Most enemies are susceptible to headshots, but since this game is exclusive to the Wii U the use of the Wii U gamepad or a pro-controller to engage that aiming is an unfortunate necessity. That being said, there’s a generous auto-aim system that keeps the shooting shockingly tight and helps to mitigate the controller limitation. I did find a few instances where the shotgun projectile hitbox didn’t engage as the weapon was fired so when enemies were very close they could avoid damage, but in most cases this did not occur. Combat with the hand to hand weapons has excellent feedback, likely refined by the developers’ previous experiences with the Ninja Gaiden reboot, and while the system is shallower than the likes of Bayonetta or Zeno Clash, when compared to games that are also primarily third person shooters (Morph X and Dark Sector) Devil’s Third’s combat is significantly more filled out. Ivan has heavy and light attacks with different animations depending on the weapon being used and can also engage different execution animations depending on nearby environmental pieces. The hitboxes aren’t immaculate but as far as Devil’s Third’s contemporaries they aren’t any worse. And the bosses are just as competently constructed.
There are 8 bosses throughout the game that don’t have explicit paths to defeating them, but some are more focussed on a particular aspect of Ivan’s combat capabilities. The bosses are usually battled within a tiny room but there are occasions where shooting the boss is the only means to defeating it. Molotov, Jane Doe, Sovershennyy, and Ludmilla Karenina are ideally battled with Ivan’s ranged weapons while Big Mouse, Grundla Saha, the Guinea Pig, and Isaac Kumano and better fought with or exclusively tackled in hand to hand combat. Molotov is an encounter that is exclusively battled from afar and acts as a climax for the tutorial, the player hides behind some chest high walls and shoots at the boss and his ads. Jane Doe is a rather disappointing encounter that acts as a more mobile version of the Molotov fight. Jane walks around the arena with an automatic rifle while some ninja enemies continually chase Ivan around the courtyard. It’s hectic and engaging, but quite underwhelming. Ludmilla is another substandard encounter although it isn’t too similar to Molotov. Ludmilla wanders around the arena while invisible, although her invisibility isn’t particularly effective so the encounter is an unfortunate missed opportunity. Every other battle is either acceptable or incredible. Or downright unbelievable. Saha is ridiculously aggressive and the Kumano fight looks like something from another game. I don’t want to spoil some of these encounters because of how amazing the reveals are. I’ll show them later on, just to demonstrate to those who won’t ever play the game how tremendous some of the encounter setups are. Instead, let’s talk about the less good things.
There are problems within Devil’s Third, of course there are, and I won’t gloss over them and present this game as something that it isn’t. There are numerous level design problems and some odd difficulty spikes that stop the game’s momentum dead in its tracks. The levels often devolve into baron hallways with nowhere to hide, or an entry into the battle environment hasn’t been ideally situated, or the player will be dropped into an arena with enemies shipped in to shoot at. This game has some insane stakes and follows some unexpected tangents, so the many streets filled with abandoned vehicles seem somewhat dishonest and almost distract from the absurdity when it does get going. And then sometimes the game deems it necessary to spam a bunch of enemies somewhere but it never fully commits. In the Big Mouse boss encounter, for example, there are 12 regular enemies standing in lines ready to shoot at the player once the movie ends. When the player is inevitably killed here the game doesn’t respawn these enemies. Games Farm would be distraught. Other times the game embarks upon a different gameplay type, such as the vehicle sections, but the mechanics aren’t as well tuned as the rest of the game and they feel cumbersome and ultimately mediocre as a result. This car sequence looks like a great time but the controls are awkward for no understandable reason.
While we’re on the subject of the game’s appearance, Devil’s Third uses Unreal Engine 3 and had to be functional on a Wii U. Unreal Engine 4 was available to developers by 2014 so the game could have been able to enjoy the advances that came between numbered versions but there’s a decent chance that the Wii U may have not been able to handle the game’s current assets within that new engine. The system’s CPU and GPU combination was cobbled together from modern components as well as components used for the Nintendo Wii, which was archaic by 2006’s standards. This meant that the Wii U could handle HD textures and higher poly counts, but when a lot of activity was occurring the system would struggle. As a result, whenever a lot of enemies appear on screen during Devil’s Third the framerate takes a bit of a hit. It wasn’t possible to optimise their way out so Valhalla should have altered their plans accordingly. This does make some things seem unnecessary though. Despite having the capability, some of the textures just aren’t up to standard. Their inexplicable low resolution causes these textures to draw attention and break any immersion that the player may have been experiencing. Similarly, some large objects exist in the environment for no good reason. At one stage, while adventuring through a Japanese theme park, Ivan passes by a replica of Mount Fuji. It’s rightfully the size of a mountain but it didn’t have to be a model, it could have been a render. I really don’t understand why these things have been done this way and it only serves to cause performance issues, irrespective of the target platform. It’s a shame too, because the bright and colourful areas are great. The palette is heavily saturated and most locations are accented by pops of red or yellow that almost juxtapose the violence Ivan is committing. And say what you will about Ivan’s design, but it is exactly the degree of dumb cheesiness I love. He’s too cool to take off his sunglasses and he refuses to wear a shirt throughout the entire adventure. I bet he rides a motorcycle too.
Ivan is one of the few characters in the game who’s name I can remember, and for a mixture of reasons. The supporting cast gets very little time to make impressions and mostly choose to yell their character traits at Ivan as he stoically walks toward them. But don’t let that stoicism fool you, Ivan can be a spiteful monster at times. His affection for C4 is supposed to demonstrate a tenderness within him, but I think Ivan’s surrender to the US military when he’s shown the destruction he and his associates had caused was a better indicator of a compassion for others. His life had been about training for that moment, and when it came Ivan’s immediate response was to eject and deal with the consequences. Other characters like the Delta Force squad leader, whose name is Captain Bob, get a fair amount of screen time but only use it to talk about the mission. Maybe their tone changes as the game goes on but they won’t often get much depth. Even Carraway is just a dude who gives Ivan orders and has a kooky backstory.
So the game’s narrative begins with a mysterious man engaging a series of explosive devices attached to satellites in orbit that causes a bunch of electrical devices to stop functioning, plunging the world into chaos. The US government is very quickly aware of the group behind the action and needs additional help to save the day. Enter Ivan, a super powered convicted terrorist who is kept deep inside of an isolated vault underneath Guantanamo Bay, who works for the US government for the promise of musical instruments. Ivan is quickly sent to Panama to track the group responsible for the attack. After some investigation, Ivan learns that his former squad are the cause and also that his sister-girlfriend character who should be dead, is in fact not dead. The journey travels from Panama to an island off the northern coast of Japan where the group had been based, and the player follows Ivan’s deadly rampage across that island. He must overcome his former allies and uncover some secret medical experiments they had been conducting before finally confronting his former mentor. Kumano yells his ideology that involves inciting nuclear war and then the two have a fight in the imaginary fire realm. C4 gets killed again but doesn’t die and Ivan gets to go back into his cell. It’s fine. C4 and the medical experiments don’t really seem that consequential, and even the fact that all of Ivan’s old friends have even super-er powers doesn’t really matter that much. The player doesn’t get to learn about what more damage would be done if Ivan fails and the destruction the organisation had already caused was severe so their plan to nuke the most populated cities on the planet had already kind of succeeded without the missiles actually exploding. And there won’t ever be a satisfactory explanation for the results of the medical experiments.
Devil’s Third was the primary reason I purchased a Wii U - yeah, another entire console to play a weirdo third person shooter, I know - but I don’t believe that purchase was a bad one. I’ve played plenty of games that do things better than Devil’s Third but I’ve also played worse. Some of the games I have played have been more competent or more mindfully adhere to the game development theory than Devil’s Third does, but they weren’t as enjoyable. Devil’s Third is so cliche, so predictable, there should be no measure by which this game is fantastic and yet it just is. Everything Valhalla put into the final product has created that perfect amalgamation of silly camp and legitimate excitement. I don’t enjoy Devil’s Third ironically, I genuinely adore this game and I’d encourage anyone to play it themselves.
In the end, I can’t agree with the conclusions of those who reviewed Devil’s Third at release. There’s a lot more fun to be had here, and the technical problems aren’t as debilitating as many made it seem. It isn’t a particularly heady experience but not every game has to be. If the player’s time is so valuable that every game has to be a life changing experience then of course Devil’s Third will be a waste of time, but is anyone really that important? The technical issues do exist, mostly as a consequence of the engine and some poor level design choices, but not so severely as to decrease the game’s value by 30-40 points, IGN and GameSpot. To ignore the humour in Devil’s Third is to ignore any personality that the game has, and to be naive enough to expect some Western-style grimey, miserable army-man game is bound to end in confusion. Devil’s Third breaks the conventions of the time by adhering so strictly to them that it seems ironic, and I think that’s magnificent.
More cool guys next time, trying to save a different party planet.
Video game criticism is exorbitantly capable of making or breaking the success of any of their subjects. Whether there were ulterior motives involved or the reviewer was having a particularly bad week, a poor reception from a large reviewing organisation can almost guarantee low sales. Being on the receiving end of a critical panning within the video game industry is almost a death sentence and for Valhalla Game Studios, it seems to have been. Despite being composed of former Team Ninja staff and lead by Tomonobu Itagaki himself, Valhalla Game Studios’ Devil’s Third was received so poorly that the studio hasn’t produced another title since. Itagaki took a 5 year hiatus from video game work, and the studio’s dreams of a trilogy would never come to fruition. Ivan’s violent adventure to prevent global destruction seemed to be the polar opposite of what the critics were wanting, and they took every opportunity to elaborate on the game’s mistakes. But was the game as disastrous as the critics claimed? Was there some predisposition to dislike Devil’s Third because of its Wii U exclusivity and bizarre character design? Was Unreal Engine 3 too archaic by 2015 or did the game’s humour just not land? To truly answer those questions, let’s take a little journey back in time.
2015 was a dark time; EA had tossed out Star Wars: Battlefront while they rebuilt Maxis into a mobile developer, League of Legends was at its most popular, Take Two was closing a bunch of it’s international developers, and Donald Trump was leading the Republican nomination. Nintendo’s home console the Wii U had been a sales disaster and during 2015 they announced their upcoming replacement, the Nintendo Switch. Developers creating games for the Wii U were suddenly put under a lot of pressure to deliver before the new system arrived, and of the 29 Wii U games released during 2015 only 10 have a Metacritic rating above 80%. Nintendo themselves were releasing poor quality games like Mario Party 10 and the infamous Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival, but right at the bottom of the list lies our hero. At a measly 43 points, Devil’s Third had earned the title of worst Wii U game of the year. IGN’s review claimed it was “the kind of soulless, perfunctory action game they fear people judging the medium of video games by”, while GameSpot said that “Devil’s Third is near-impossible to recommend.” Technical problems, shallow gameplay loops, and unwelcome difficulty were among the main criticisms within almost all of the other 54 Metacritic reviews and my experience will not get the benefit of post-launch patches to clear any of those problems away. Despite this, Itagaki was still very positive about the studio’s future.
Valhalla Game Studio was founded in 2008 by former Team Ninja staff, after the release of the reboot Ninja Gaiden sequel. Itagaki had left Tecmo with intention to sue after he wasn’t awarded bonuses he was promised, and convinced a contingent of his colleagues to migrate with him. Throughout the next seven years, Valhalla would seek a publisher for Devil’s Third who would assist them in placing the game onto the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. Valhalla were eventually successful in brokering a partnership with THQ but with their bankruptcy and liquidation in 2012, Valhalla were left high and dry. Korean multimedia organisation Doobic were brought aboard to fill THQ’s absence, but Doobic also went out of business during 2013. In 2014, Devil’s Third was displayed by Nintendo at E3 and released on the Wii U in the following year. Devil’s Third seemed to have been doomed to fail from the start and it isn’t surprising that the game has the reported problems that it has. But the fundamental design wouldn’t have been compromised during these publisher and platform changes, so was the original design just poorly conceived?
Devil’s Third is a third person shooter with a robust action combat system existing alongside the shooting mechanics. Ivan is a highly competent whirling-death-meat-machine, able to wield any firearm or bladed weapon he gets a hold of. At the beginning of most levels Ivan will be deployed with his katana and a couple of varying automatic weapons and maybe a shotgun or a sniper rifle. Those automatic weapons change from time to time, but for the most part Ivan’s weapons will feel very similar; they all have similar aiming mechanics and recoil effects. Hand to hand combat is well-rounded, featuring attack combos, blocking, dodging, and a targeted jumping attack for extra style. Ivan is very athletic and can use his impressive vertical leap to scale pretty high walls. He’s also quick on his feet and is able to keep a low profile when required. I especially enjoyed the slide move as it allowed swift gap closing while also allowing gunfire to pass overhead. Further, there are a few different set piece segments to keep things fresh as the game charges forward like boss battles and vehicle sections. As far as having enough to do, Devil’s Third delivers and provides a handful of systems to master as the narrative progresses.
So the criticism of the game’s shallowness seems unfounded, there’s a surprising quantity of enemy types who are best handled in different ways that keeps the various combat encounters fresh and still ensures the game doesn’t overstay its welcome. In the early stages the enemies aren’t mind-blowing or anything, but they’re filling their roles perfectly fine. More hand to hand enemies are introduced, then a mini boss of sorts appears, things get silly in terms of theming but the enemy designs are unique and engaging, and the game continues to deliver new opponents throughout its run time. Most enemies are susceptible to headshots, but since this game is exclusive to the Wii U the use of the Wii U gamepad or a pro-controller to engage that aiming is an unfortunate necessity. That being said, there’s a generous auto-aim system that keeps the shooting shockingly tight and helps to mitigate the controller limitation. I did find a few instances where the shotgun projectile hitbox didn’t engage as the weapon was fired so when enemies were very close they could avoid damage, but in most cases this did not occur. Combat with the hand to hand weapons has excellent feedback, likely refined by the developers’ previous experiences with the Ninja Gaiden reboot, and while the system is shallower than the likes of Bayonetta or Zeno Clash, when compared to games that are also primarily third person shooters (Morph X and Dark Sector) Devil’s Third’s combat is significantly more filled out. Ivan has heavy and light attacks with different animations depending on the weapon being used and can also engage different execution animations depending on nearby environmental pieces. The hitboxes aren’t immaculate but as far as Devil’s Third’s contemporaries they aren’t any worse. And the bosses are just as competently constructed.
There are 8 bosses throughout the game that don’t have explicit paths to defeating them, but some are more focussed on a particular aspect of Ivan’s combat capabilities. The bosses are usually battled within a tiny room but there are occasions where shooting the boss is the only means to defeating it. Molotov, Jane Doe, Sovershennyy, and Ludmilla Karenina are ideally battled with Ivan’s ranged weapons while Big Mouse, Grundla Saha, the Guinea Pig, and Isaac Kumano and better fought with or exclusively tackled in hand to hand combat. Molotov is an encounter that is exclusively battled from afar and acts as a climax for the tutorial, the player hides behind some chest high walls and shoots at the boss and his ads. Jane Doe is a rather disappointing encounter that acts as a more mobile version of the Molotov fight. Jane walks around the arena with an automatic rifle while some ninja enemies continually chase Ivan around the courtyard. It’s hectic and engaging, but quite underwhelming. Ludmilla is another substandard encounter although it isn’t too similar to Molotov. Ludmilla wanders around the arena while invisible, although her invisibility isn’t particularly effective so the encounter is an unfortunate missed opportunity. Every other battle is either acceptable or incredible. Or downright unbelievable. Saha is ridiculously aggressive and the Kumano fight looks like something from another game. I don’t want to spoil some of these encounters because of how amazing the reveals are. I’ll show them later on, just to demonstrate to those who won’t ever play the game how tremendous some of the encounter setups are. Instead, let’s talk about the less good things.
There are problems within Devil’s Third, of course there are, and I won’t gloss over them and present this game as something that it isn’t. There are numerous level design problems and some odd difficulty spikes that stop the game’s momentum dead in its tracks. The levels often devolve into baron hallways with nowhere to hide, or an entry into the battle environment hasn’t been ideally situated, or the player will be dropped into an arena with enemies shipped in to shoot at. This game has some insane stakes and follows some unexpected tangents, so the many streets filled with abandoned vehicles seem somewhat dishonest and almost distract from the absurdity when it does get going. And then sometimes the game deems it necessary to spam a bunch of enemies somewhere but it never fully commits. In the Big Mouse boss encounter, for example, there are 12 regular enemies standing in lines ready to shoot at the player once the movie ends. When the player is inevitably killed here the game doesn’t respawn these enemies. Games Farm would be distraught. Other times the game embarks upon a different gameplay type, such as the vehicle sections, but the mechanics aren’t as well tuned as the rest of the game and they feel cumbersome and ultimately mediocre as a result. This car sequence looks like a great time but the controls are awkward for no understandable reason.
While we’re on the subject of the game’s appearance, Devil’s Third uses Unreal Engine 3 and had to be functional on a Wii U. Unreal Engine 4 was available to developers by 2014 so the game could have been able to enjoy the advances that came between numbered versions but there’s a decent chance that the Wii U may have not been able to handle the game’s current assets within that new engine. The system’s CPU and GPU combination was cobbled together from modern components as well as components used for the Nintendo Wii, which was archaic by 2006’s standards. This meant that the Wii U could handle HD textures and higher poly counts, but when a lot of activity was occurring the system would struggle. As a result, whenever a lot of enemies appear on screen during Devil’s Third the framerate takes a bit of a hit. It wasn’t possible to optimise their way out so Valhalla should have altered their plans accordingly. This does make some things seem unnecessary though. Despite having the capability, some of the textures just aren’t up to standard. Their inexplicable low resolution causes these textures to draw attention and break any immersion that the player may have been experiencing. Similarly, some large objects exist in the environment for no good reason. At one stage, while adventuring through a Japanese theme park, Ivan passes by a replica of Mount Fuji. It’s rightfully the size of a mountain but it didn’t have to be a model, it could have been a render. I really don’t understand why these things have been done this way and it only serves to cause performance issues, irrespective of the target platform. It’s a shame too, because the bright and colourful areas are great. The palette is heavily saturated and most locations are accented by pops of red or yellow that almost juxtapose the violence Ivan is committing. And say what you will about Ivan’s design, but it is exactly the degree of dumb cheesiness I love. He’s too cool to take off his sunglasses and he refuses to wear a shirt throughout the entire adventure. I bet he rides a motorcycle too.
Ivan is one of the few characters in the game who’s name I can remember, and for a mixture of reasons. The supporting cast gets very little time to make impressions and mostly choose to yell their character traits at Ivan as he stoically walks toward them. But don’t let that stoicism fool you, Ivan can be a spiteful monster at times. His affection for C4 is supposed to demonstrate a tenderness within him, but I think Ivan’s surrender to the US military when he’s shown the destruction he and his associates had caused was a better indicator of a compassion for others. His life had been about training for that moment, and when it came Ivan’s immediate response was to eject and deal with the consequences. Other characters like the Delta Force squad leader, whose name is Captain Bob, get a fair amount of screen time but only use it to talk about the mission. Maybe their tone changes as the game goes on but they won’t often get much depth. Even Carraway is just a dude who gives Ivan orders and has a kooky backstory.
So the game’s narrative begins with a mysterious man engaging a series of explosive devices attached to satellites in orbit that causes a bunch of electrical devices to stop functioning, plunging the world into chaos. The US government is very quickly aware of the group behind the action and needs additional help to save the day. Enter Ivan, a super powered convicted terrorist who is kept deep inside of an isolated vault underneath Guantanamo Bay, who works for the US government for the promise of musical instruments. Ivan is quickly sent to Panama to track the group responsible for the attack. After some investigation, Ivan learns that his former squad are the cause and also that his sister-girlfriend character who should be dead, is in fact not dead. The journey travels from Panama to an island off the northern coast of Japan where the group had been based, and the player follows Ivan’s deadly rampage across that island. He must overcome his former allies and uncover some secret medical experiments they had been conducting before finally confronting his former mentor. Kumano yells his ideology that involves inciting nuclear war and then the two have a fight in the imaginary fire realm. C4 gets killed again but doesn’t die and Ivan gets to go back into his cell. It’s fine. C4 and the medical experiments don’t really seem that consequential, and even the fact that all of Ivan’s old friends have even super-er powers doesn’t really matter that much. The player doesn’t get to learn about what more damage would be done if Ivan fails and the destruction the organisation had already caused was severe so their plan to nuke the most populated cities on the planet had already kind of succeeded without the missiles actually exploding. And there won’t ever be a satisfactory explanation for the results of the medical experiments.
Devil’s Third was the primary reason I purchased a Wii U - yeah, another entire console to play a weirdo third person shooter, I know - but I don’t believe that purchase was a bad one. I’ve played plenty of games that do things better than Devil’s Third but I’ve also played worse. Some of the games I have played have been more competent or more mindfully adhere to the game development theory than Devil’s Third does, but they weren’t as enjoyable. Devil’s Third is so cliche, so predictable, there should be no measure by which this game is fantastic and yet it just is. Everything Valhalla put into the final product has created that perfect amalgamation of silly camp and legitimate excitement. I don’t enjoy Devil’s Third ironically, I genuinely adore this game and I’d encourage anyone to play it themselves.
In the end, I can’t agree with the conclusions of those who reviewed Devil’s Third at release. There’s a lot more fun to be had here, and the technical problems aren’t as debilitating as many made it seem. It isn’t a particularly heady experience but not every game has to be. If the player’s time is so valuable that every game has to be a life changing experience then of course Devil’s Third will be a waste of time, but is anyone really that important? The technical issues do exist, mostly as a consequence of the engine and some poor level design choices, but not so severely as to decrease the game’s value by 30-40 points, IGN and GameSpot. To ignore the humour in Devil’s Third is to ignore any personality that the game has, and to be naive enough to expect some Western-style grimey, miserable army-man game is bound to end in confusion. Devil’s Third breaks the conventions of the time by adhering so strictly to them that it seems ironic, and I think that’s magnificent.
More cool guys next time, trying to save a different party planet.
Devil's Third is the type of game where you need to know what to expect a bit in advance in order to get full enjoyment out of it. The game is glitched, rushed, and quite frankly doesn't control or perform well at all; however, the cheesy story and over-the-top action in the gameplay and silliness in the story make up for a decent time.
It's quite obvious this game does not take itself too seriously but that's fine and adds charm to the game.
It's quite obvious this game does not take itself too seriously but that's fine and adds charm to the game.
Competent in areas that matter and incompetent in ways that are not in any way infuriating, this game turned out to be surprisingly alright. With a decent melee system, a bunch of guns at your disposal, and enemies that explode into a fountain of blood and guts when you kill them, the combat here is leagues better than the contemporaries, all the while avoiding the pitfall that so many shooters fall into of giving your MC, like, three bullets worth of health, and making Ivan Devilsthird a walking tank. It's a shame that this early Xbox 360 title is all but forgotten nowadays.
what do you mean this was released on the Wii U in 2015
what do you mean this was released on the Wii U in 2015
It's impossible to play now due to the servers being dead so you'll just have to take my word for it, but the online multiplayer fucking slapped
EDIT: for a more thorough take, check out my review for the reincarnation of its multiplayer, RockShot, which was only online for three months
EDIT: for a more thorough take, check out my review for the reincarnation of its multiplayer, RockShot, which was only online for three months
Vanquish shooter controls with hack-and-slash melee combat. Stupid underrated.
Devil's Third is a chaotic mess of a game, blending third-person shooting with over-the-top melee combat. Its story is nonsensical, the controls are clunky, and its performance issues are jarring. Though a dedicated online multiplayer mode exists, it's plagued by glitches and balance problems. Despite occasional moments of absurd, B-movie style fun, Devil's Third remains a largely unpolished and frustrating experience that fails to execute its ambitious ideas.
Decided to rewrite this review since I've beat the game. Mad underrated actually. I like the action movie-like story and the gameplay. It's simple and short, but that's the beautiful thing. It's still fun and entertaining. REALLY like the mix of melee and shooting. But if you emulate it keep in mind that the game works only on opengl and and textures get corrupted when you play for long so when that happens you need to reboot the emulator. Otherwise the game works pretty smoothly
"An idiot admires complexity, a genius admires simplicity, a physicist tries to make it simple, for an idiot anything the more complicated it is the more he will admire it, if you make something so clusterfucked he can't understand it he's gonna think you're a god cause you made it so complicated nobody can understand it"
-Terry A. Davis, RIP.
People weren't ready for this game, it didn't deserve this much critical panning. Sure, it went through development hell, having to change multiple publishers to settle down for an exclusivity deal with Nintendo at the end, but i'd argue that it delivered. Tomonobu Itagaki's main purpose for this game was its multiplayer (which unfortunately is dead) it actually did very well in Japan, even having the multiplayer filled with people so much that they made a "Devil's Third Online" on PC that was JP-Exclusive. Itagaki notes on his FB Account that he wanted to get as many people in its multiplayer mode. He also noted many things like how he was done with Ninja Gaiden & DOA but he wanted to continue Devil's Third. Its almost been 9 years since this game's release and with Wanted: Dead coming out this year and his heir Yoshifuru Okamoto doing a great job overall, its safe to say Itagaki will make a comeback sooner or later.
The reviews that note it down as a poorly made game with poor mechanics are absolutely clueless on how to play this game. It literally is simple, you've got your shooting, sliding, blocking, parrying, dodging, jumping, quick attacks and heavy attacks. However, despite all of this, in every goddamn video I've seen that pans this game as the absolute worst or shrugs it off as a "so bad its good" title, they always end up hiding behind covers and shooting with the gun... Yeah, let us just ignore the fact that this is a literal Gun-Fu game, where you're literally encouraged to use the melee as much as you're encouraged to use the gun. The game even throws you in a lot of different enemy types and bosses for you to switch up your playstyle. But nope, everyone is going to approach the combat with as much disinterest and disaffection as possible. Then later complain how much it sucked. These are the same people that play games in so-called "Journo" baby mode.
"Itagaki professes a liking for simplicity of inputs, he states too many inputs would result in the loss of the gaming experience."
-From Tomonobu Itagaki's Wikipedia page
Itagaki doesn't care for complexity, it has been apparent ever since DOA & Ninja Gaiden and that's where the beauty of his game design kicks in, the simplicity. There's no need to memorize movesets because all of it naturally gets revealed to you, you know exactly how to approach a threat, and to eliminate it. In Devil's Third especially, one of my favorite combat strategies was to slide towards the enemy while hip-firing, then cancelling it with a slash and getting that sweet glory kill. Another great mechanic was the ability to leap kills and being able to throw your melee weapon at the enemy, I was just so hooked to the gameplay and the endless combat scenarios, I couldn't stop at all. All of these abilities are presented to you by the man himself so you can play experimenting with different approaches as it was intended. Not just sticking to one method of gameplay like an absolute cretin. It genuinely infuriates me to see people refer to this as a "Gears of War" clone or a "TPS COD", when it has absolutely nothing in common.
Devil's Third's story felt like a riff on Metal Gear, which seemed to be the case for any Japanese game releasing during that era. It involves heavy on the nose Buddhist themes, as if the Sanskrit tattoos written all over our main protagonist, Ivan, wasn't an indication already. You have loading screens filled with Buddha statues, and not to mention a Buddhist take on a "revenge" story, with the main antagonist's ultimate masterplan literally being the concept of Nirvana in itself, is nothing short but one hell of a ride. The boss encounters are especially to live for, your final stand-off with Isaac Kumano is genuinely breathtaking sequence, that I feel a certain game company for sure took some artistic liberties in putting it in their own title. :)
Tomonobu Itagaki to this very day is still proud of what he's done. When asked about the hysterical criticism, his answer was: "The fans loved it." And that's what Itagaki truly cares for. As if these Metacritic obsessing, ratingheads would understand.
"To all my fellow gamers. No matter how the world changes or times pass, our love for games and our passion will never die. Thank you all for waiting so long for this moment."
-Tomonobu Itagaki, End Credits of Devil's Third.
-Terry A. Davis, RIP.
People weren't ready for this game, it didn't deserve this much critical panning. Sure, it went through development hell, having to change multiple publishers to settle down for an exclusivity deal with Nintendo at the end, but i'd argue that it delivered. Tomonobu Itagaki's main purpose for this game was its multiplayer (which unfortunately is dead) it actually did very well in Japan, even having the multiplayer filled with people so much that they made a "Devil's Third Online" on PC that was JP-Exclusive. Itagaki notes on his FB Account that he wanted to get as many people in its multiplayer mode. He also noted many things like how he was done with Ninja Gaiden & DOA but he wanted to continue Devil's Third. Its almost been 9 years since this game's release and with Wanted: Dead coming out this year and his heir Yoshifuru Okamoto doing a great job overall, its safe to say Itagaki will make a comeback sooner or later.
The reviews that note it down as a poorly made game with poor mechanics are absolutely clueless on how to play this game. It literally is simple, you've got your shooting, sliding, blocking, parrying, dodging, jumping, quick attacks and heavy attacks. However, despite all of this, in every goddamn video I've seen that pans this game as the absolute worst or shrugs it off as a "so bad its good" title, they always end up hiding behind covers and shooting with the gun... Yeah, let us just ignore the fact that this is a literal Gun-Fu game, where you're literally encouraged to use the melee as much as you're encouraged to use the gun. The game even throws you in a lot of different enemy types and bosses for you to switch up your playstyle. But nope, everyone is going to approach the combat with as much disinterest and disaffection as possible. Then later complain how much it sucked. These are the same people that play games in so-called "Journo" baby mode.
"Itagaki professes a liking for simplicity of inputs, he states too many inputs would result in the loss of the gaming experience."
-From Tomonobu Itagaki's Wikipedia page
Itagaki doesn't care for complexity, it has been apparent ever since DOA & Ninja Gaiden and that's where the beauty of his game design kicks in, the simplicity. There's no need to memorize movesets because all of it naturally gets revealed to you, you know exactly how to approach a threat, and to eliminate it. In Devil's Third especially, one of my favorite combat strategies was to slide towards the enemy while hip-firing, then cancelling it with a slash and getting that sweet glory kill. Another great mechanic was the ability to leap kills and being able to throw your melee weapon at the enemy, I was just so hooked to the gameplay and the endless combat scenarios, I couldn't stop at all. All of these abilities are presented to you by the man himself so you can play experimenting with different approaches as it was intended. Not just sticking to one method of gameplay like an absolute cretin. It genuinely infuriates me to see people refer to this as a "Gears of War" clone or a "TPS COD", when it has absolutely nothing in common.
Devil's Third's story felt like a riff on Metal Gear, which seemed to be the case for any Japanese game releasing during that era. It involves heavy on the nose Buddhist themes, as if the Sanskrit tattoos written all over our main protagonist, Ivan, wasn't an indication already. You have loading screens filled with Buddha statues, and not to mention a Buddhist take on a "revenge" story, with the main antagonist's ultimate masterplan literally being the concept of Nirvana in itself, is nothing short but one hell of a ride. The boss encounters are especially to live for, your final stand-off with Isaac Kumano is genuinely breathtaking sequence, that I feel a certain game company for sure took some artistic liberties in putting it in their own title. :)
Tomonobu Itagaki to this very day is still proud of what he's done. When asked about the hysterical criticism, his answer was: "The fans loved it." And that's what Itagaki truly cares for. As if these Metacritic obsessing, ratingheads would understand.
"To all my fellow gamers. No matter how the world changes or times pass, our love for games and our passion will never die. Thank you all for waiting so long for this moment."
-Tomonobu Itagaki, End Credits of Devil's Third.
this game tries so many things, and doesn't succeed at any of them particularly well. but there is potential there. the mismash of cover shooter and character action doesn't work as neither of them are super fleshed out, and they are largely segmented - most enemies are best sorted out with normal cover shooting, and most bosses are outright immune to bullets. you can see where a good character action game could exist in fights like saha - he has a lot of moves, he is fun to react to, but as a player your options are just not versatile enough nor is he consistent enough. i wish this game had a parry so goddamn bad.
i will say i laughed out loud about 10 times. this game really does try to do the tone and character stylings of metal gear and slap it onto guns and swords action, and if nothing else the characters are successfully very stupid.
BIG MOUSE
i will say i laughed out loud about 10 times. this game really does try to do the tone and character stylings of metal gear and slap it onto guns and swords action, and if nothing else the characters are successfully very stupid.
BIG MOUSE
"You must be Devil's Third for the Nintendo Wii U if you think we fucking"
Me:
Me:
even though almost everything about it is average i love games that has a credits with vocal music and it's surprisingly good. itagaki based
https://youtu.be/ZRB6uvJXmFk
https://youtu.be/ZRB6uvJXmFk
The guiltiest of guilty pleasures. It's everything that sucks about modern video games: linear levels with plenty of cutscenes and scripted setpieces to cover up the lack of actual design, bullet sponges aplenty, two-weapon limits, underutilized mechanics and one-note characters and plot. It's also got faults of its own: wonky hit detection and cover mechanics, shallow melee combat, auto-aim being a must due to the Wii U Gamepad's awful analog sticks, lame bosses, horrendous AI...
I have no idea why I like this. My life is a lie.
I have no idea why I like this. My life is a lie.
6.7/10
The only enjoyment I get out of this game is that if I sold it I would make more money then I bought it for. Got in on the ground floor for the investment of a lifetime. Thanks Pii U.
I remember this game having some serious frame issues and being basically very average.
I remember this game having some serious frame issues and being basically very average.